10 Most Mismatched Enemies In Movie History

The thrill of watching a movie fight is all about seeing the hero face off against an enemy whose might cannot seemingly be matched; after all, why do you think underdog movies like The Karate Kid are so successful?

We like seeing heroes triumph over adversity – after all, isn’t that how they become heroes in the first place? – yet sometimes, filmmakers get things a little wrong. Of course, it can be intentional, but sometimes, a spot of casting, scripting or fight choreography just doesn’t pan out as they expect it to in theory.

The result? Some of the most hilariously, brilliantly mismatched movie fights of all time. They’re difficult to take seriously – as is sometimes the point – but almost always entertaining to watch. If offered a more fierce alternative, I think I’d always opt for what we ended up with; these films are all certainly more famous – at least in the annals of YouTube montages – because of their wonderful mismatches…

10. Bruce Lee vs. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – Game of Death

We’ll start with one of the most blatantly obvious fight mismatches in cinema history; Billy Lo (Bruce Lee) facing off against the gigantic Hakim (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) in Lee’s final film released after his untimely demise, Game of Death. Frankly, what more needs to be said?

Does this picture not speak a thousand words? Depending on which sources you’ve read, Bruce Lee was anywhere from 5 foot 6 to 5 foot 8, weighing from 125-150lbs, whereas the famous basketball player stood at a gigantic 7 foot 2, and weighed anywhere from 225-250lbs.

This should have resulted in Billy getting his ass unceremoniously kicked, but of course, in true Bruce Lee fashion, he emerges the victorious underdog, using Hakim’s great height against him and choking him to death. While Hakim has lightning fast feet, Billy’s are faster, and he can manoeuver around quicker to win against the pretty incredible odds.

Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.

Discussion

8 Comments

Actually Shaun, Raul Julia was cast as Bison because he wanted to do one final movie at the time and he allowed his children to pick the part. It was going to be a role he did for them, a blockbuster film so they could always remember their dad as being larger than life. Yes it was a failure but I have no doubt his kids loved it and you can really see that Julia was enjoying the role.

I don’t qualify Bruce Lee vs Kareem as a mismatch because Lee would have tooled him in a real life fist fight. An honourable mention should go to The Robot vs Aztec Mummy (a MST3K episode). They hype the fight the entire movie and the Robot is stilled destroyed in less than 10 seconds, literally being pulled limb from limb. Good list.

Sorry but number 1 is clearly Gino (Steven Seagal) versus Richie (William Forsythe) in Out for Justice. Although frankly Seagal movies could have filled the entire top 10. This one though is the creme de la creme. Richie is frankly out of shape, pudgy and not much of a fighter. Gino has been shown all movie long breaking arms like they were breadsticks. The result is all too predictable. But what sets this fight scene apart from all the ones in the list is the prolonged and sadistic nature of it.
For example in the Equilibrium example, Preston kills Brandt in seconds, because he can. Gino undoubtably could do the same to Richie but instead he proceeds to beat him in an extremely prolonged manner. Basically like Tyson fighting Prof Hawkings but teasing it out over 12 rounds.

And Seagal does this all the time in his movies. Aside from perhaps Under Siege the typical Seagal movie features him being far superior than ALL his opponents resulting in Seagal actually being Jason Vorhees with a mullet.

Marked for Death (notice the film titles all follow the same formula too) features perhaps the all time best example of overkill (although the fight itself is not so one sided as the one with Richie). Here the villain has his eyes gouged out blinding him, then has his back broken and is then dropped down an elevator shaft, where he is impaled when he gets to the bottom.

Monty Python’s the Black Knight suffers less (which is also a complete miss match of course).

The fight between Bruce and Kareem we see in game of death is only unlikely due to the fact Bruce took too long to defeat him. In reality Bruce would of ended the fight in minutes. James Coburn once said in an interview on a Bruce documentary that Kareem couldn’t touch him in reality. Bruce was back and forth so quickly hitting Kareem that kareem couldn’t get at him at all. Oh and before you talk about something you obviously have no idea about! Kareem was a student of Bruce Lee’s.